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Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Counterblast Unboxed! The Mekkus

With our Counterblast Kickstarter loot well in hand, it's time to start unpacking the goods. First up on the table is going to be the Mekkus starter box, available now from Bombshell Miniatures.

Here's the stock image for the Mekkus core set, sculpted and painted by Patrick Kieth, also known to many as The Sculptdude. The core set has a list price of $49.99, which comes with five white metal models. Before you balk at the price-to-model ratio, take a look at that huge guy in the middle...the one pretty much filling a 50mm base, and being over 20mm tall in the dome alone. A Mekkus Central Command Unit in a sock is a home defense device Alex Huntley can certainly approve of.

Yeah, I wasn't kidding when I said he was a lump of metal. Measurements viewable in both inches and centimeters. Fourteen metal pieces in this bad boy. The (only semi hollow) dome, a base plate, two piece antenna/dish assembly, three anchors for the weapon systems, and three PAIRS of particle beam cannons. 50mm base included, as is that rather heavy duty metal flight stand you see in the shot. That stand would probably do the trick really well, and it plugs into the base of the model nicely, but I'm a bit paranoid about all the weight being above it. I intend to drill through the bottom, and use a brass rod to "umbrella assembly" the model. This guy is no pushover, and for good reason- with the Mekkus if you loose all models with the "uplink" capability, you're in for a bad day, and in the core set it's just him. My intention is to magnetize the particle beam cannons to allow me to switch them out for other weapons systems the Controller can have. The fact that I don't have any of those pieces yet is irrelevant... always think two turns ahead.

The next up is the Defender unit. Now, if you backed the Kickstarter you have two of these, if you're buying from the website you've got one. Six components make up a Defender: a pair of weapons, a pair of tread assemblies, a chassis component that holds everything together, and a turret mount for the weapons. 40mm base included. This one is shown with particle beam cannons as well. On the website you can order this version, or one with gamma disruptor cannons (so pulpy!). The Defender can also be armed with pulsar cannons or rocket launchers... so more magnets inbound on this guy as well. Oh... unless I miss my guess, we're going to see some of these parts used later for other constructs. The chassis component is the same top to bottom and doesn't need to be for this piece. Also... something about it just screams to me it has a lot more uses, and that it was intentional.

Third in line is the Seeker. A good little spotter model that can also be used for objective running, the Seeker is going to give you speed. Neat little guy, and so easy to assemble too. Body, a radar dish, four wings, and an unpictured metal flightstand to drop into a 25mm slotted base. By the way... I think I mentioned this while talking about the Jetbikes, but these flightstands are amazing. Yeah, I get that they're not clear...but they're also not going to snap, they secure into the base on a different axis than the one the model rests on, and they can reasonably be bent or manipulated for more angles.

Rounding out the box is a pair of Aggressors. Two in the core set, four in the Kickstarter. (This, by the way guys, is why we bring you so many Kickstarter reviews...the value in Kickstarters right now, for good or bad, is of tremendous benefit to the end user.) Each Aggressor is a flight stand, a hull, and two weapons. Simple. Pictured are the particle beam and pulsar rifles, but a gamma disruptor variant is also available form the website, rounding out the three loadout options for the unit. Yup, you guessed it, it's magnets time. For the record, you might even be able to get away without magnetizing them- the rod and socket assembly fits very snug. My concern is eventually it'll wear out, so better to avoid the problem now.

As far as gameplay goes, the core box without any modifications or added on gear comes out to 235 points, which is a respectable sized game. While you'll undoubtedly want to expand and prefer one type of unit over the others, I think this box gives you a really good "sampler package" of what is available for the faction, demonstrates the modular aspect of the weapon systems, demonstrates the "build to purpose" concept of the Mekkus, and really has no throw away models in it whatsoever. I'm looking forward to getting these bad boys painted and on a table soon. TokenGamerChic and Ali have already started painting their core sets, so we should be able to have some pretty battle reports really soon, as well as gameplay tutorials. Questions? Comments? Agree/Disagree? Drop them below!

4 comments:

Those Seekers are amongst the most dangerous models in the Mekkus arsenal. Two or three of those and a rocket launcher armed Central Command will ruin the day of any opposing force. Throw in a few cheap aggressors to run interference and screen those Seekers to make things even more difficult,